Oracle goes social with Vitrue acquisition
It's been a rough week for the world's most prominent social networking company, Facebook, and the week isn't over yet, but that doesn't mean that social media is going away any time soon.
That explains why software giant Oracle has purchased cloud-based social marketing platform provider Vitrue.
Turn your digital technology provider from supplier to partner
As the online industry has grown, so have the number of moving parts we have to consider.
As the cogs in the machine continue to multiply, everyone has had to acquire cross functional skills to manage the different channels that come under the remit of the online marketer.
Whether it be PPC, SEO, re-targeting, social, mobile, or local; the one entity in this eco-system that should have a working knowledge of all of these areas is your technology provider.
Pinterest joins the billion dollar club with $100m funding from Rakuten
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.
The words made famous by the movie that dramatized Facebook's beginnings may soon be passé in Silicon Valley, as investors clamouring to get in on funding rounds for the hottest tech startups seem increasingly willing to put their cash in at billion-dollar valuations.
Crazy? Perhaps, but Facebook's $1bn Instagram acquisition shows that big valuations don't exclude companies from the startup lottery, at least for the time being.
The latest entrant to the billion dollar club will be Pinterest, thanks to a $100m funding round led by Rakuten. The funding round puts a $1.5bn valuation on Pinterest.
SceneTap and the perils of 'anonymous' data gathering
A man walks into the bar...
That's the start of countless jokes, but it's not a joke for SceneTap. For the Chicago-based startup, a man walking into a bar is just another event that can be tracked and analyzed.
Thus far, SceneTap has tracked 8.5m such events at more than 400 bars and nightclubs using cameras that allow it to determine how crowded a bar is, the approximate ages of patrons and male-to-female ratios.
Brazilian retailer C&A brings Facebook 'likes' to the clothing rack
For brands using the seemingly ubiquitous Facebook 'Like' button, more is usually better.
Translating all those 'likes' into sales, however, is for many if not most brands, a difficult exercise. After all, it's easy to get consumers to say they like something than it is to get them to pull out their wallets.
39m Americans made a purchase via mobile last year: stats
Mobile commerce has been a topic of great interest for marketers and businesses in the past several years.
And for good reason: with more and more consumers carrying increasingly sophisticated mobile devices with them everywhere they go, the potential to drive commerce in ways never before possible is fast becoming a reality.
There are numerous challenges, of course. The mobile device and OS landscape is highly fragmented, there are numerous security concerns and performance is absolutely crucial.
Traditional CRM vs social CRM (Infographic)
Over the past two years Our Social Times has hosted social CRM conferences in London, New York and Paris.
It's a fast-growing industry with many specialist themes, but the first question the speakers always get asked is: "How does social CRM differ from traditional CRM?"
Is time running out for email append?
What do you do if you have a large volume of your customer database which has no email address alongside it, or has an email address that is no longer valid?
You obviously want to find up to date email addresses for these customers and the most popular (cheap) way of doing this, is to use an email append service.
This seemingly innocent process has taken a bit of flack recently, first being soundly thrashed by the Messaging Anti Abuse Working Group (MAAWG for short) and then very publically pilloried by Experian Cheetahmail.
So what has caused this to happen? And what should you consider before embarking on an email append project?
Q&A: Vivien Underwood on Econsultancy's Digital Certificates
Econsultancy recently launched the UK's first university accredited Digital Certificates, which focus on strengthening digital marketing skills for those looking to begin or develop their careers in this industry.
Academic accreditation is provided by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and courses currently available include analytics, SEO, and social commerce.
I've been speaking to Vivien Underwood, our Head of Professional Development, about the certificates...
LivingSocial launches its own Visa reward credit card
While daily deals giant Groupon deals continues to struggle with being a publicly-traded company, its biggest competitor, Amazon-backed LivingSocial, continues to try to prove that the daily deal model is viable when done right.
One of the biggest challenges in doing that is getting daily deal customers to return to the merchants that lured them in with a bargain.
Indeed, much of the criticism that has emerged around the daily deal model is that many if not most daily deal customers hop from business to business in search of the best deal. In the worst cases, this leaves some merchants with losses they can ill-afford.
